Warning for potential suicide, hate crimes, and definite police incompetency behind the link and down the page here.

Police responded to the scene and found the victim hanged on rope from a tree, said News Affairs Officer Amina Greer.

The death did not look suspicious, a police source said.

Seriously?? What about this death was UNSUSPICIOUS exactly? I guess it’s that, you know, most people kill themselves in racially charged ways in public. Or maybe it’s just that the man died of natural causes and the recession being what it is, the family figured they’d let scavengers dispose of the body. Totally unsuspicious.

It couldn’t possibly be that an ethnic minority in a low-income part of town was, most likely, killed (or displayed post-mortem) in an intentionally uncomfortable way and the police just don’t want to deal with that right now. It couldn’t be that they won’t be held accountable — as they too often aren’t — if they brush this one off. After all, people die on the South Side every day, don’t they? It’s a dangerous part of town!

No. Whether this is an interracial hate crime or a gang trying to send a message — or just a really odd suicide — it needs to be addressed as the uncomfortable and disturbing incident, not to mention sad loss — that it is, and that’s not happening.